this really is a poor example of a graph. I understand what you are trying to put across, the relevant harms of different drugs, but you have far to much information in your columns to be really meaningful.It also does not qualify what the relative harms are in each column, for instance,death from heroin is far more harmful than drug related impairment of mental functions from mushrooms, but they take up similar “lengths/levels” in your bar graph. Temporary impairment should never be confused with death when talking about harm in this form.I know which one I would consider preferable. The inclusion of and equal weighting of these different aspects renders this graph meaningless except to paint alcohol in a better light than it really should be(actually much more harmful than all other drugs). It also paints tobacco in a much bettor light than it deserves as the deaths related to it every year are only bettered by alcohol. Surely death is a much more serious side effect than environmental damage or some of the other aspects of this graph?
@ Keith Ross – I agree and that tobacco is shown in a much better light than what it really is. Whats with the ‘metamfetamine’? I may have to refer this graph to the spell check mafia.
I disagree, tobacco will bring an early death to the user, so who really gives a shit. If my neighbour smokes ciggies than they should go for it. Tax them at rates of about 5 years ago, and their drug of choice funds its own healthcare costs. On the other hand if you have ever lived next door to a drunk, you’ll know how unpleasant it is, noise and shit that will drive you crazy.
As a society we have gone overboard with tobacco. Keep smoking outside and attack the companies, not the smokers…ban advertising, plain packets and restrict the places it can be sold etc, but the stigma associated with it has become over the top. Nobody beat their family after smoking too many ciggies.
We need to get people off the booze and onto drugs that don’t cause harm to others. That must be our focus. Stigmatise booze for the sake of the vulnerable. If people want to smoke ciggies they should go for it, its not like we have to breathe that filth anymore now its banned from inside buildings. And people’s dislike of the smoke in places like parks has been socially constructed, its a whif of smoke, whipdo-do, it beats a fart. Lets keep the drug issue logical, we need the tobacco tax revenue
Well, there is no information on how the “harm score” was calculated, so your criticism may or may not be warranted. There’s also no information on source and scope of the data, i.e. which countries it is from. Is this NZ, the US or data from anywhere they could get it? It would also be very interesting what the harm per user is. Alcohol and tobacco likely have such a high harm score because they are consumed by many more people than the others but it would be interesting to know what the average harm to the individual users of the different drugs is.
drug related mortality from cannabis?? I didn’t know you could die from the munchies!
Fix society and the drug issues will fix themselves . As Barry Crump once said ‘ There’s no such thing as dangerous drugs , just dangerous drug users . ‘
Lets go all Portugal and legalize everything ? Why not ? It’s working tremendously well for them .
Oh , yeah right . We’re still tied to Richard Nixons apron strings . How bizarre is that ?
And if you think recreational drugs are bad , try visiting a sober , old person in an ‘ aged care facility ‘ with nothing but the stink of other old people to snort . Fuck that ! Give me cocaine any day .
And I reckon we should all just shut the fuck up about drugs . All of them . A stone cold sober New Zealand ruled by jonky-stien does not sound sweet-as does it ? Hugs AND Drugs I say . And I like the graph , it’s pretty .
One thing I did notice about it though was that it didn’t show a column for death from a life overdose .
I see i’m not the only person dissatisfied with the graph. No title, no legend and no description as to how it is assessed. I suspect this graph is very good in it’s original context but what the hell does it mean on its own? In terms of the harm index, It obviously is harm per society as opposed to harm per individual user of the drug which is very misleading for anyone using it as a guide… “hey I’ll drop the cab sav and take up crack… it’s safer.”
Can we now have these columns shown adjusted as per user because really really, I don’t think the beer I have in my hand is worse than P.
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this really is a poor example of a graph. I understand what you are trying to put across, the relevant harms of different drugs, but you have far to much information in your columns to be really meaningful.It also does not qualify what the relative harms are in each column, for instance,death from heroin is far more harmful than drug related impairment of mental functions from mushrooms, but they take up similar “lengths/levels” in your bar graph. Temporary impairment should never be confused with death when talking about harm in this form.I know which one I would consider preferable. The inclusion of and equal weighting of these different aspects renders this graph meaningless except to paint alcohol in a better light than it really should be(actually much more harmful than all other drugs). It also paints tobacco in a much bettor light than it deserves as the deaths related to it every year are only bettered by alcohol. Surely death is a much more serious side effect than environmental damage or some of the other aspects of this graph?
@ Keith Ross – I agree and that tobacco is shown in a much better light than what it really is. Whats with the ‘metamfetamine’? I may have to refer this graph to the spell check mafia.
I disagree, tobacco will bring an early death to the user, so who really gives a shit. If my neighbour smokes ciggies than they should go for it. Tax them at rates of about 5 years ago, and their drug of choice funds its own healthcare costs. On the other hand if you have ever lived next door to a drunk, you’ll know how unpleasant it is, noise and shit that will drive you crazy.
As a society we have gone overboard with tobacco. Keep smoking outside and attack the companies, not the smokers…ban advertising, plain packets and restrict the places it can be sold etc, but the stigma associated with it has become over the top. Nobody beat their family after smoking too many ciggies.
We need to get people off the booze and onto drugs that don’t cause harm to others. That must be our focus. Stigmatise booze for the sake of the vulnerable. If people want to smoke ciggies they should go for it, its not like we have to breathe that filth anymore now its banned from inside buildings. And people’s dislike of the smoke in places like parks has been socially constructed, its a whif of smoke, whipdo-do, it beats a fart. Lets keep the drug issue logical, we need the tobacco tax revenue
Well, there is no information on how the “harm score” was calculated, so your criticism may or may not be warranted. There’s also no information on source and scope of the data, i.e. which countries it is from. Is this NZ, the US or data from anywhere they could get it? It would also be very interesting what the harm per user is. Alcohol and tobacco likely have such a high harm score because they are consumed by many more people than the others but it would be interesting to know what the average harm to the individual users of the different drugs is.
drug related mortality from cannabis?? I didn’t know you could die from the munchies!
Fix society and the drug issues will fix themselves . As Barry Crump once said ‘ There’s no such thing as dangerous drugs , just dangerous drug users . ‘
Lets go all Portugal and legalize everything ? Why not ? It’s working tremendously well for them .
Oh , yeah right . We’re still tied to Richard Nixons apron strings . How bizarre is that ?
And if you think recreational drugs are bad , try visiting a sober , old person in an ‘ aged care facility ‘ with nothing but the stink of other old people to snort . Fuck that ! Give me cocaine any day .
And I reckon we should all just shut the fuck up about drugs . All of them . A stone cold sober New Zealand ruled by jonky-stien does not sound sweet-as does it ? Hugs AND Drugs I say . And I like the graph , it’s pretty .
One thing I did notice about it though was that it didn’t show a column for death from a life overdose .
I see i’m not the only person dissatisfied with the graph. No title, no legend and no description as to how it is assessed. I suspect this graph is very good in it’s original context but what the hell does it mean on its own? In terms of the harm index, It obviously is harm per society as opposed to harm per individual user of the drug which is very misleading for anyone using it as a guide… “hey I’ll drop the cab sav and take up crack… it’s safer.”
Can we now have these columns shown adjusted as per user because really really, I don’t think the beer I have in my hand is worse than P.
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